Cat Adams - The Mammoth Book of Irish Romance

«Enough.»

The new voice was as soft as the Morrígan’s was harsh. All Aodhan could see of the lady’s form was her feet, shod in cloth embroidered with leaping deer and forest flowers. All at once the crows scattered, circled, and dived again to be enfolded within the Morrígan’s cloak.

«Brighid,» the Morrígan said, anger and surprise mingled in the word. «This is none of your affair.»

«Is it not?» The lady knelt beside Aodhan and touched his blood-smeared hair. Warmth reached into him, soothing his hurts like a balm.

«What did you do to bring the people’s wrath upon your head?» she asked him.

«It was I who brought it,» Séanat said, wresting free of Niamh and Ríona. «I failed to keep him as I promised.»

The lady met Séanat’s gaze. «Do you regret your vow to me?»

«She had no right to make any vows!» the Morrígan hissed. «She was sworn to me!»

«You are wrong,» Brighid said. She swept her hand over Aodhan’s back, and all his wounds were healed. «There is a bond greater than that between warriors.»

Lugh came to stand over her. «Your interference is not welcome, Brighid,» he said.

«But it is necessary, Lugh mac Ethlinn. unless you would be a kin-slayer.»

No one spoke for a terrible moment. Séanat held her breath. The Morrígan’s cloak rustled and spat. Lugh’s frown was like an eclipse of the sun.

«Speak your meaning, lady,» he said.

Brighid rose and spread her arms to embrace the assembly. «All know the tale of Lugh Lámhfhada’s father, Cian, son of Dian Cécht, who sought Ethlinn, daughter of Balor, in the crystal tower on Oileán Thúr Rí. There he got three sons upon her. Two were said to be drowned by Balor in a whirlpool. Only Lugh survived.»

There were mutters of agreement. All knew the story of Lugh’s birth, his fosterage with Tailtiu, daughter of the chief of the Fir Bolg, and how he came to join the Tuatha Dé when he reached manhood and won his place among his father’s people.

«But there is one thing you have not heard,» Brighid said. «One other child of Ethlinn survived, to be fostered by Ochtriallach, son of Indech, king of the Fomóiri. His name was Aodhan.»

«Still more our enemy!» someone shouted.

Brighid’s beautiful face turned towards the voice. «His foster-brother and companion in battle was Ruadán, my son. His father was Cian.» She looked at Lugh. «He is your brother, Ard Rí.»

Séanat’s legs nearly gave out beneath her, and only Niamh and Ríona kept her on her feet. Goibhniu thrust the tip of his spear into the ground with such force that the earth shook with the blow. The Morrígan’s eyes burned with rage. Aodhan, coming to his knees, stared at Brighid in wonder.

Lugh’s face filled with sorrow. «Is it so?» he asked. He offered his hand to Aodhan. «If you are my brother, it is no fault of yours that you never knew your kin.»

«I knew them,» Aodhan said, rising without touching Lugh’s hand. «As you never knew your true mother, King of the Tuatha Dé. With the Fomóir, with my foster-brother, I would gladly have died.» He looked at Séanat and smiled, driving the last despair from her heart. «Because of her, I found cause to live.» He knelt again at Brighid’s feet. «I once promised to do Séanat’s will. I broke my oath. I will gladly pay my debt in any way you choose, but Séanat is blameless.»

Even from a distance Séanat could feel the power of Brighid’s healing love. «We are none of us without blame,» she said, «but there must come an end to feud and vengeance. In your blood, in Lugh’s, lies the hope of reconciliation.» She turned to Aodhan. «Your people are not gone so long as you live.» She held out her hand to Séanat. «Come, child.»

The Morrígan stepped between them. «You will regret your intrusion, Brighid. A time will come when such weakness will bring about the downfall of the Tuatha Dé. ‘Summer without blossoms, cattle without milk, every man a betrayer, every son a reaver.’»

Eyes met, bright and dark. «Nothing is forever,» Brighid said. «All things come to an end. all but one. As long as that one thing exists, there is hope.»

She stepped around the Morrígan, took Séanat’s hand, and offered the other to Aodhan. He rose, and Brighid placed his hand in Séanat’s. «As long as you live, may you be as one.»

With a screech of fury, the Morrígan spread her arms wide. Her body flew apart in an eruption of black feathers and rasping croaks as the crows burst forth and spun into the sky.

«Will the world end as she prophesied?» Aodhan asked.

«Not yet.» Brighid bowed to Lugh, smiled on the assembly, and walked away.

Séanat leaned her head against Aodhan’s. «Is it over?» she whispered.

«Embrace me, brother,» Lugh said, coming to join them. «Let the bloodshed end here. Let there be peace.»

And so there was. In time, Séanat gave birth to a girl-child, whom she and Aodhan named Brighid in honour of the lady who had saved them. The Tuatha Dé Dunaan ruled Éire for many years more, until the coming of the Milesians with their iron weapons and new kind of magic.

But that is another story.

She shouldn’t be here.

Tara McGinty pushed an errant strand of hair from her face. Around her, tendrils of early-morning mist rested on the damp heather coat of the field they were excavating. The light green of a copse of ash trees to the north of the archaeological dig contrasted with the backdrop of the darker slopes of the round-topped Mourne mountains in the distance. An army of dark clouds loomed on the West horizon, emphasizing the fleeting nature of the fragrance of fresh dew in the air. A lone crow’s caw didn’t break the silence as much as accentuate it.

In four hours, the first of the staff would arrive. The smell of coffee would mingle with young voices, students grateful for the summer job, flirting and bantering. With a sudden sense of urgency, Tara ducked under the canopy that protected her demarcated soil squares from rain. She cast a glance at the tent near the entrance to the dig. Thomas, Dr Dullaghan’s faithful sidekick, was still asleep. There hadn’t been as much as a stir from inside the tent when she’d slipped a note through a small gap in the tent flap:

I couldn’t sleep, so I started to dig. Call me when you wake up and I’ll make both of us tea.

Tara

She’d have been surprised if he wasn’t asleep. It was only four in the morning, a chill bite in the air belied the fact that summer was at the height of its power.

Tara opened her knapsack. With deft movements born of hours spent scraping soil away in search of the past, she first took out a small square of canvas and laid it on the ground. On that, she placed a trowel, brush, metal dustpan, measuring tape, folding metre stick, clipboard and her camera. She checked the remaining contents: a flask of tea and a sandwich, in case she got thirsty or peckish before the rest of the staff arrived. These could stay in the pack.

Tara picked up the trowel and stilled. There it was again. That same prickling feeling that often crawled up and down her spine when she met certain people. It wasn’t as intense as usual, but the feeling was unmistakably there. She’d felt it from the first day she arrived at the dig, but shrugged it off. It would soon disappear: it always did. This time, however, it had not settled into an almost pleasant buzz, it had become a constant irritation.

She clicked her tongue and stepped into the shallow hole. Dullaghan had decided to let her choose her own square to excavate, with no supervisor peering over her shoulder. «Away from the rest of the dig, so you can have some privacy,» he’d said. But she’d sensed something else under his words, a kind of frustration. The man didn’t like her, she was sure of it. He’d appointed another worker, who also held a BSc Honours in Archaeology and Geology, to be square supervisor. Tara didn’t mind, but Dullaghan had insisted on giving her the option of working alone to «make up for it».

The dirt made a scraping sound as she brushed it into the dustpan. She emptied it into a bucket beside her square to be sifted for possible relics later, and tackled the next layer of soil.

In the end, worried about Dullaghan’s attitude to her and feeling miserable at the prospect of being apart from the camaraderie that often developed on a dig, she’d picked her spot to dig at the exact place where the prickling feeling along her spine had been strongest. What a fool. The feeling had driven her to distraction over the last few weeks: invaded her dreams, stolen her sleep.

This morning she’d got fed up with tossing and turning. Sure, midnight had been an all too recent memory in the air, but the long summer day was already chasing darkness from the skies. She’d given in to the sense of urgency and driven to the dig to start working. And now, three full hours before the rest of the crew were due to arrive, she’d unearthed something. interesting.

Something round and beige was revealed when she carefully scraped away the next layer of dirt. It was about the size of her thumb. A river pebble, probably, though its mere presence here could tell a story. She brushed away more of the dirt, reached for her measuring tape and noted the pebble’s exact position on her clipboard. The temptation to dig just more and more ate at her tired brain, but Tara resisted. She removed another layer of soil with the trowel, leaving the dirt around the pebble for last. Then she took up her brush, excitement rising in her chest.

It was a face, probably a statue or a bust. Although, when she leaned closer, it didn’t look right for that. It seemed too real. Measure, note, photograph — with hands shaking from excitement. Should she go and wake Thomas? But no, she wanted to unearth this alone. Tara set to work on the next layer of soil. It was more than just a bust. A body emerged as she carefully removed another layer of the earth that had hidden it. This was no statue. It was human remains.

This time, before she reached for her measuring tape and camera, she set her brush aside and stared at the man she’d uncovered. Something was seriously wrong here. She’d taken every grain of soil from the body herself, there was no indication of recent disturbance. From the settled state of the earth, she’d have guessed he must have been buried for at least 100 years, possibly more. Yet the body looked fresh.

Soil and climatic conditions were not condusive to mummification, yet the corpse had not skeletonized. In any case, it didn’t look mummified. It looked as if life had animated the man’s long limbs and sensitive lips just yesterday. As if he’d open his eyes and lift an arm to scratch his one-week beard any moment now.

Another anomaly puzzled her: though there was no sign of as much as a scrap of clothing on him, a rusted belt buckle had emerged as she’d brushed away the dirt on his stomach. The rest of the belt, and the trousers it had held up, must have disintegrated. That meant a good few years’ underground.

Tara peered at his finely sculpted face, more that of someone asleep than long dead. The stillness of early morning hung around her like a shroud. Rain started pattering on the canopy over her head. A deep sense of melancholy overcame her as she stared at the corpse, still half encased in tight-packed soil.

She rose, picked up her camera and took photos of the find from every angle, circling him clockwise, then she retraced her steps to put the camera away again. Tara climbed back into the hole, grateful now that she’d given in to the impulse to excavate two squares side by side. Her man lay diagonally across them.

What had he been like when this body was still filled with life? she wondered as she crouched beside him. The little she could see of his face spoke of a handsome man with fine features. Only his face showed, his head was still encased in soil. What colour was his hair? It was impossible to tell if his dirt-caked chin was covered with dark or light stubble.

His lips were perfect. Not too thick, not too thin. Made for smiling. For kissing. «Come back to life, sweet man, and tell me your story,» she whispered. She kissed her fingers and dared to touch them to his mouth.

His lips moved.

At the same moment, a shock of impressions flooded her mind. A feeling of pressure around her ribs, of an overwhelming desire to gasp a deep breath but no space for her chest to expand. She snatched her hand away and scrambled from the hole with a suppressed yelp, falling on her backside.